Top box office movies that took people out of the house last year and literally moved them into cinemas all around the world include a lot of Sci-Fi and fantasy productions people have been waiting for quite some time, and some stand-alone we fear will be soon forgotten. If usually summer comes with a boom or two, last summer the world went mad as cinema was so generous (from the movie studios part, of course), it offered us action-packed, humor-packed and even muscle – packed silver screen big hits to please any taste.

Did they have success? If we check out the box office, we’d say they did and then some, as some of these titles kept the world on edge for a while. And with the freshly awarded Golden Globes and with the Oscars coming up in a jiffy, and with so many nominations and bets placed on so many titles, it is hard to chill out. On the contrary, if last summer you happened to be on some lush beach instead of going to the cinema and went blind for the rest of the year, we’ll walk you through last summer blockbusters nostalgia road and see if some of the movies had at least some impact, big enough to be remembered next year.

World War Z

Some of us said it already: not another Zombie Apocalypse movie, for crying out loud! Were you sick and tired of the zombie apocalypse? Apparently you were the only one, as even with Walking Dead satisfying everybody’s taste and soft spot for the undead, this movie still managed to fill in the cinemas everywhere. World War Z gave us a story about a zombie infestation that menaces mankind in all its locations, while an older (but still hot) Brad Pitt – UN employee, husband, father and wrinkle carrier – tries to save the entire world from its almost sure demise. It is a pandemic type of movie you are familiar with, but the special effects are indeed spectacular. The movie is based on a novel written by Max Brooks and called “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War”. Will you still remember it next summer? Hard to tell and probably not. 

This is the End

Seth Rogen played a dangerous bet with this movie, and apparently he won. Being his directing debut, a summer comedy involving six friends trapped in a house while a series of catastrophes basically dismantle entire Los Angeles is a dangerous premise as disaster movies have been made before, claustrophobic movies have been made sometimes way too many times before and the concept of testing people’s friendships and bonds is certainly not new. However, people who saw the movie said it was funny, different, with touches of originality, with good script and dialogues, good atmosphere and actors really enjoying playing this one. Still lacking faith? It was considered among the best movies of 2013. Will you care enough to recommended next year? Depends on what the crazy bunch comes up with next… Good potential here.

Now You See Me

This sort of Ocean’s 11 but with magic and not keeping the money made an interesting spring – summer thriller. Illusionists we kinda seen before, but this time, although people secretly hoped The Four Horsemen would hit banks, keep the money, get chased by the police and get away with it all, the movie breaks the pattern and tells us a story of four bank robbers giving the money to their constantly growing audience. Who finances their hi-tech illusions? Why are they stealing and not keeping anything? And how do they do it? And to what personal benefit? Answers you received if you saw it. Admit it, you felt quite entertained in the company of Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Melanie Laurent, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, Common, Michael Kelly, Elias Koteas and Michael Caine. Will you care in the next 12 months? We’d bet our cinema ticket you won’t.

The Purge

…and we had the monster of the house this summer too, ladies and gentlemen. In a dystopic America, devastated by violence and crime, with over crowded prisons and the authorities’ incapacity to manage the situation no longer, the Government decided that one night a year, for 12 hours, any crime, infraction, violent acts and whatever bad things people would feel like committing, to be allowed without police intervention, without any medical care for the victims. 12 hours when America unleashes the beast inside and goes against anybody and everybody, in order to be good and behave for the rest of the year.

And this movie’s plot takes place inside a house! Where Ethan Hawke manages to play the disturbing role of a man trying to protect his family and make it alive to the morning, after accepting to host some strangers in his house. With an Ethan Hawke people missed quite a lot in the last years, the movie made some interesting promises, although it would have been more disturbing to the the family trying to survive the Purge night outside, and not inside the house. Not the most outstanding of the last summer blockbusters nostalgia to keep alive, but interesting nonetheless. There’s something about a Purge 2 movie, but we don’t even want to know.

If you’re wondering why we didn’t say a word about the real blockbusters movies of last summer, come on, we all saw them. Man of Steel, Star Trek into Darkness (nominated for 1 Oscar), Iron Man III (nominated for 1 Oscar), these you will hear about very soon and for a very long time from now on, as they are the winning franchises of the century, together with whatever Marvel is going to come up with, the Batman vs. Superman thingies and the rising Star Wars VII you’re gonna get fed up with before it hits cinemas. So a real blockbusters nostalgia you won’t have, as the blockbusters are already knocking at our door.